Zig Zag Runner

The Cut Ups met yesterday to work on a project from the book Loose Change by Claudia Plett and Le Ann Weaver.  There are many wonderful quilts in this book that all use basic cuts of fabric.

The one we worked on was based on five inch squares of fabric to create a 30" x 12" table runner.

I have not completed mine yet (still don't know what to do about the binding) and I cheated by not adding borders but this is how it came out:

I used some of my hoarded hand dyed fabrics from Just Imagination and I like the way that the fabric seems to give additional movement to the the piece.

The Cut Ups try to do projects that are small enough to get a good chunk of the work done within a three hour period.  This project fit the bill and, thanks to Janet's prep work which included re-writing the instructions to make them more efficient, this project fit the bill perfectly.

 What took the most time was squaring up the little 4" component blocks.  When you do that 40 times, its gets a bit boring.  The thought if ding that for a full size quiltmake me cringe.

There was a complex border in the pattern, made up of flying geese rectangles, that I eliminated because I didn't want to take all that time for a basic project like this.

I hope your weekend is going well and that my local friends did not get drowned out in the thunderstorms last night.  I don't know how much rain we got but the forecast currently calls for the possibility of showers every day for the next week so I expect we will all be soggy by next weekend.

How I love the smell of soggy dog!

Wanna Quilt?

The Kingwood Area Quilt Guild is having an auction of quilts on March 26. You don't even have to be here to get a wonderful quilt for your home. Just head on over to the Bidding for Good site and check out the wonderful quilts made by guild members.

Even if you don't bid, the site has some serious eye candy for quilt lovers everywhere.

PS - none of the quilts were made by me.....maybe next time!

Cut Ups Bee

Friday afternoon was the first meeting of a new quilting group called the Cut Ups. The group will be meeting once a month to make simple quilts using pre-cut fabrics.

The first project used two sets of six squares of different colors to make heart blocks. I used some pre-cut squares that I had lying around to make three heart blocks that I assembled into a table runner/wall hanging. Just to make this a more useful project I used an insulating batting called Insul-Bright so that the whole thng can be used as a heat resistant pad.

Here's how mine turned out:

I know I didn't used traditional fabrics but I like the fabrics I did have... especially as they were what I had on hand. Maybe next time I'll use traditional reds and whites and give it to Sweet Sadies for their Valentine's decorations.

Until then have a sweet day!

Knitting Basics

Thursday morning I am teaching some members of the Kingwood Area Quilt Guild how to knit. Although I have gathered a lot of donated knitting needles and yarn and even made a few knitting bags, I realized that adults, unlike middle schoolers, like things in writing so I came up with the following.

Knitting 101

Basic Tools

Two sticks – normally called knitting needles but chop sticks or pencils will do in a pinch
String – also called yarn

Other Tools (in order of extravagance)

Scissors – used for cutting string

Pen and paper – for making pattern notes

Yarn Needles – for weaving in ends of string

Crochet hook – to help with fixing dropped stitches

Row Counter – neat little tool to count your rows instead of keeping track of them on paper

Markers – can be anything from a paper clip to fancy beads on an ‘O” ring to keep track of stitches

Tape measure - for checking the length and/or width of your projects

Metal Needle gauge - needed to find out the size of your needles and for establishing your gauge/tension of a swatch of knitting

Project bag – to hold your projects and tools, can be anything from a zip lock bag to a leather suitcase

Reference materials – I like ‘The Knitting Answer Book’ but there are others like ‘Knitting and Crocheting for Dummies’

Ball winder – for helping with transforming skeins to balls before knitting

Swift – holds your skein of yarn while winding (instead of using a volunteer)

Project One

Book Mark
Cast on 18 stitches
Knit eight rows
Bind off
Tie bound off yarn to yarn from cast on for a tail

Basic Skills

Cast on – Reverse Loop Cast On
Knit – Pull string towards you
Purl – Pull string away from you
Increase – Knit one in the front of the loop and one into the back of the same loop
Decrease - Knit two stitches together
Bind off – Knit two stitches, take first stitch and loop over second stitch so that only second stitch remains on your right hand needle



Internet resources

http://www.knittinghelp.com/ - I think this is the place with the best videos on different knitting skills

http://www.ravelry.com/ - an online community of knitters. I don’t go there a lot except when I am looking for a pattern. My name there is knittyalice.

http://www.youtube.com/ - just write in the search box what you need and up pops thousands of videos. Many of the videos are poorly made but there are some real gems out there.

http://www.knitpicks.com/knitting.cfm - great place to spend a lot of money on all things knitting. Excellent prices on tools and I like their self branded needles a lot.

http://elann.com/ - incredible yarns at incredibly good prices.

http://www.lionbrand.com/ - one of the best places to find free patterns from famous designers. JoAnn’s carries their yarns.

Local Stores

Twisted Yarns – On the road into Old Town Spring from I45 - http://twistedyarnstexas.com/

The Hen House – On Louetta, west of I45 - http://www.thehenhousetx.com/

Knitting in the the Loop – north of 59, east of 610, just south of Westheimer - http://www.knittingintheloop.net/index.html

Yarns 2 Ewe - south of I10, going North on Shepherd - http://www.yarns2ewe.com/

Other Resources

Knit at Night Guild – meets all over the city. Closest meeting is in Spring (Knitters North of Town = KNOT) on the fourth Thursday from 6:30 – 8:30 PM. http://www.knitatnight.org/

Yarn it! Darn it! – Sponsored by the Kingwood Branch of the Harris County Library System. Meets the third Saturday of the month from 10:00 AM – Noon.

Friday Morning Knitters – every Friday at 10:00 AM some of us meet at the Town Center Starbucks to talk and knit. Everyone is welcome to join us. Show and Tell is always welcome and advice is always available for free.

I hope the quilters enjoy learning a new skill. Some of them are such talented sewers that I think they will surpass their knitting teacher in no time at all.

The Kingwood Quilt Part 73

The group working on the quilt for the Kingwood Library had another gathering this evening to work all the blocks into a setting. The important thing here is that we had all the blocks to work with even though some still needed a little tweeking to add some definition to the subjects.

Here's how it is looking so far:

plus some details:

Each of the blocks will be surrounded with a lovely leafy brown and green batik... just as though they were laid out on the forest floor. The high quality of the workmanship is amazing and the variety of the blocks submitted is extremely creative. There will be a bunch of little nine patch blocks and other pieced blocks scattered throughtout the quilt to fill-in any gaps where necessary.

I think this quilt (for the Library), and it's twin sister (which will be auctioned for the benefit of the Guild), are going to bring a smile to the face of everyone who sees them.

There are a lot of stories in this quilt and all the difficulties people have had putting their blocks together. I do not need to go into my trials with the spider or the cicada again. While I was bemoaning the garbage pail full of cicada scraps another block maker confided to me that she had spent $42.00 collecting and experimenting with materials for her dragonfly block. Since she made two fo them I guess this makes this bccok the $21.00 dragonfly... and worth every penny of it!

I hope your week has been going well. I am looking forward to even more rain here, this time from a Pacific hurricane rather than from the Gulf, which we had today. Autumn here can become a sea of mud as the hurricane season winds down. With it so wet so frequently it does is give me an excuse not to mow the grass in the backyard and Kelis more excuses to dig holes under the fence.

A Quilt Tale

Thirty one years ago the local quilt guild created a quilt to be auctioned off for the benefit of the local volunteer emergency services unit. The quilt eventually made its way to the King Ranch. Photos exist of it hanging in a hunt camp on the Ranch but the quilt seems to have disappeared. Here is an original picture of the quilt:

Stories about the quilt have been circulating for many years. One that I found particularly endearing was that the quilt was put on a bus for a trip back to Kingwood and never made it back here. I love the idea of it offloaded by mistake in some small Texas town and given to some tired kid waiting for another bus to another small town until worn and much loved it now lives in someone's home as a much loved keepsake of a long ago journey.

Call me sentimental.

A new library is being built here and the Guild was considering what it could do to contribute to the new building. Since the old quilt was MIA, a new Kingwood Quilt is being created to be displayed on a wall on a second floor wall in the atrium for everyone to enjoy.

A small group from one of the Bees got together under the leadership of that go-getter Margo to start working on it and your correspondent decided to participate.

It seemed like a good idea at the time.

The original had lots of hand appliqued scenes of Kingwood activiies with a limited color palette.

The new quilt is being built around a laser cut and fused applique of the Kingwood logo, that intricate brown woodland scene in the middle of the quiilt photo above.

Then we are adding a lot of blocks of things that you see in the woods around here like all the wildflowers,animals, trees, birds and bugs. Someone has already made a beautiful hummingbird, another some glorious pinks and, in an extreme case of irony, someone who was recently bitten by a raccoon, made a beautiful block of a raccoon.

Oh, and did I mention, we need to make two of everything. One for the Kingwood library quilt, and one for a quilt for the Quilt Guild auction next April.

My assignment is to make blocks of a ciccada and a golden silk orb weaver spider.

Yup, I got the bugs!

This past weekend I decided to bite the bullet and get cracking on at least one set of blocks. I chose to work on the spider. Here's what the spider looks like:

I had a embroidery chart for a spider for inspiration.

Then I went to my patchwork books to see if aything inspired me and found this block called a spider web.

Then I dug into the box of fused fabrics, colored pencils, dyes and fabric marking pens I sometimes play with and thought these would be useful.

Oh, then I remember I was supposed to incorporate one of two fabrics, a light blue or a light beige, into the blocks.

After much fussing around these are the blocks I came up witI think I prefer the one on the left (less creepy) though when I made the blocks I preferred the one on the right (I like that back right leg stretching for the web). I fused all the fabrics and sewed them down with silk threads. I left the edges raw in anticipation that over time they may fray which would make them more realistic.

Now that I am over the hump, I just may take another stab at them for a more realistic looking rendition. If the others in the group think these look too goofy, and I hope they can be open enough to say so, I will definitely take another stab at lthem.

On to the ciccada. I think I already have this one figured out... I know it will not have a pieced background and the applique will not be as intricate... at least i do not plan on showing its little, teeny, tiny, legs.

Sweet Sadie's Update: Still waiting on the final Health Department Inspection. There is no way to hurry them up but I wish they would!

For more on the quilt please see this link.

Carol Doak Class

On Friday I was in an all day class with Carol Doak. Carol's claim to fame is her publication of a zillion paper piecing designs as well is her well organized and methodical way of creating paper pieced blocks. Our area was very lucky to have her here for about two weeks. She gave three lecture/trunk shows and held about six classes. She is a pretty good teacher and was able to adjust her teaching to make complete newbies comfortable as well as more seasoned quilters successful.

The major draw was that Carol has annouced that she is going to be taking some time off and not traveling for a while. I don't know if this means she is retiring from the teaching circuit or that she wants to spend time with her newly retired husband but I do know that you won't go wrong if you catch a class by her. One caveat is that she does do a lot of selling class, but, then again ,she has a lot of information to share that is included in the things she sells.

We worked on a small wall hanging from her 'Mariner's Compass' book. The center piece of the block was the block she calls France. It is made up of eight elements with six peices of fabric in each. Most of the participants used fabrics that reads as solids from pastels and to primary colors. I used pieces from my stash of hand dyed fabrics and this is how it came out:

It needs a border or two and some quilting but I do like the way it came out, albeit a little unconventional. Before I make it up I may spend time coloring some of the pieces a little darker so that the shadows are more clearly defined. Unitl then it will go into my stack of UFO's until I get inpsired.

Have a good week!

Oh Joy! Oh Bliss!

The Kingwood Area Quilt Guild bi-annual Quilt Show is over and I have very mixed feelings about it all.

I organized the Fish Pond/Garage Sale part of the show and I keep wondering if there was more I could have done to sell guild cast offs for more money. I think I raised a lot of money... at least $1,500.00 but I can't help but wonder if there was a better way to do it.

I am VERY happy that it is all over. My dining room is empty of all the boxes and bins I had in there full of stuff. In the end about 50 boxes and bins went through this house to the store room and then to the Quilt Show.

The most positive note, besides raising a lot of money, is that I got rid of absolutely everything... right down to the bags we used to for scrap fabrics and for big grab bags. The final small box of scrap fabrics went to one of the charity sewing groups and the last six books came home with me of which only one is something I would not have bought.

I was lucky in that I got a lot of stuff from a past member's stash as it took some of the pressure off the rest of the guild to get me stuff. I don't know if we will ever have that much stuff the next tme we do this.

To make sure we have lots of stuff next time, I am thinking that every guild member could be asked to get a bin that they will use until the next show to gather their old magazines, books, scraps, dead projects and anything else the next Fish Pond chair can sell. Wtih over 100 potential donors that's a lot of stuff to sell off.

So I have been enjoying the joy and bliss of having my life back. I slept all thorugh the morning without once wondering if there was something I should be doing to prepare for the sale.

I do have one regret that it is all over... I no longer have an incredibe stash of reading material avaiable to me on a whim. I guess that is why one of the last things I did before going to set-up the tables of stuff, I went through the house looking for books and magazines that had migrated out of the dining room into the kitchen, the bathrooms and the bedrooms.

I don't miss that enough to volunteer to do it again!

A Special Find

I think I am becoming a bag lady.

Not that I wander the streets with all my belongings in a variety of shopping bags but I get a lot of bags every week filled with goodies for various projects. For instance, in the last 24 hours I received about a dozen bags of stuff for the knitting club kids, the arts and crafts kids, for making cancer caps and for the quilt guild garage sale. In addition, I got a ton of magazines and books for the quilt guild and several bundles of knitting needles for the knitting club kids. Most of what I collect are used items in good condition, some are new and some are meant to be tossed out. I go through it all to see where the items belong and I have no regrets about moving things from one group of donations to another ... like knitting yarn to the knitting club kids rather than the quilt club or sparkly yarn for the arts and crafts kids rather than the knitting club kids.

It all balances out in the end .

Today, while sorting through some of this loot I came across a great find..... two blocks from an old signature quilt were in one of the bags of fabric. Check these out:

They are not in good condition ... faded, dirty and very well worn. They appear to be from the same quilt and are completely hand pieced and quilted. I'm not sure what to do with them but I hope that they end up with someone who will appreciate their uniqueness and use them to advance our knowedge of the makers and their work. I wonder if either are still alive?

I'm not sure where to start but I think I have some hours of research ahead of me before deciding what to do with these blocks. Wish me luck!

Knitting Joy

At a quilt guild meeting the other day one of our members mentioned that she was starting a knitting club at one of the local middle schools. In a moment of complete insanity I volunteered to help her out. I went through my yarn stash for balls that I could donate to the cause and I stopped at Nancy's Knits to pick up some inexpensive knitting needles for the kids. Nancy generously offered our guild member some modest quality but strong needles for $2.00 a pair so I had to scoop up a few sets knowing that I don't any regular needles to spare. Unfortunately I have a zillion needles for socks from beloved, but deceased, female relatives and no-one seems to want those.

Anyway I went to the Humble (pronounced with a silent H) Middle School on Tuesday for our first session. We got ten kids including one boy. The kids ranged from special needs students to overachieving straight A students. With only two of us, it was difficult to give everyone the attention they needed however the spectacular Ms. L. promised to spend time with each of them before our meeting next week. I am so inspired by their high spirits and sweaty determination. I had almost forgotten what is was like to be in grades sixth through eighth when your body seems to be betraying you every day with new growth. I think I taught a couple of them how to get started. I think next week, we will work the students on getting even stitches and starting out any others that show up. Another guild member is also coming to help and I think we will need her.

I gave myself some homework... to knit with two sticks and some string to show the kids that you do not need fancy supplies for a good product. A couple complained that the needles we provided were not 'real' knitting needles because they weren't metal. I have the sticks (cheapo chopsticks) and some kitchen string so I will try to make a couple of bracelets or even a small scarf before next week with these materials.

Wish me luck and if you are in my area and would like to join in the fun, please let me know. The more the merrier should be our motto for this project!

Challenges

There are many reasons to join a Craft oriented group. The 10% discount at JoAnn's, for most of them, is a real incentive. The access to classes taught by local and national teachers is definitely a bonus. Just talking with people who know the terms of your craft can be so relaxing. Another benefit of joining is the opportunity to participate in group projects that stretch your creative juices and give your skills a workout. In most cases these opportunities are called challenges and this month the Kingwood Area Quilt Guild has come up with two dandy ones.

First they came up with an ongoing Lottery Block challenge. A Lottery Block is when you make blocks based on a common set of criteria. When you turn in your blocks you get a chance to get back all the blocks submitted. In this case, the challenge was to precisely make a 9 1/2" nine patch block using batiks and black. The challenge for me was not the fabric selection but making my blocks precise enough for even the most critical members of the quilt police. Of the four blocks I made only one has a bit of visible wackiness where the corners don't meet precisely. I will be submitting all four this evening at our regular meeting. When we get eighty blocks submitted the drawing will be held. Here is what I came up with this month:

The neat part of this challenge is that we will keep this going all year so your chance of getting enough blocks for a nice sized quilt resets every time a new batch is received. I like this idea a lot. Even though the simple nine patch may not be a challenge for some quilters I think we all need to go back to our roots every once in a while to keep our basic skills sharp.

The second Lottery Block Challenge was to make a 12 1/2" block using some red Christmas fabric we had been given. No restrictions were made on what the block should look like or how many other fabrics you could add to the selected fabric. I went very simple and made a wreath block from the book '501 Quilt Blocks' and tacked on a ribbon bow. One person tonight will win all the blocks just in time to create a sampler quilt for the coming holidays with the red fabric as a unifying element. Here's how mine came out:

Future monthly meetings will include the batik nine patches plus a very specific 12 1/2" block. I have seen a preview of a couple of the 12 1/2" blocks and they have yummy colors and challenging construction techniques.

If Lady Luck smiles on me I may be bringing home most of a quilt top tonight. As block construction is not my favorte part of quilt winning would be a real boost to my quilt output.

Finny & Donk's Sewing Adeventure Aug/Sept

The project for August and September from the 'simple gifts to stitch' book was the cover project of the Tri-pocket Ticking Tote. I had always wanted to make it because of the attractive cover photo. What I did not realise was how large it would be. At about 17" tall and 13" wide it is one big tote bag. The cover shot showed the bag made in lovely pink and brown mattress ticking. I happen to have the first laundry bag my mother made me in a red and white ticking when I left home in from sixth grade many, many years ago. I had always intended to use that fabric for this project but it was way too small. Instead, I used some of the fabulous fabric I purchased at Vogue Fabrics in Chicago when I was there in July.

Here's how the bag came out - three pockets on the front of the bag as shown in the instructions:

Here is the back of the bag with one pocket just because I wanted to see if I could match up the other part of the print:

The fabric is a home dec weight canvas and is slightly stretchy. I think I need to add at least one set of red lips but I just can't figure out which face to deface. In any case, it turns out to be the right size to carry around my supplies for my position on the Kingwood Area Quilt Guild Executive Committee so it will get a lot of use.

Into the Mail

As part of the Interfaith Quilting Bee a special block is suggested each year for the groups to concentrate on making. Last year it was a rail fence variation. It was a good choice as a simple block but it did require some precision sewing to get it all to line up correctly. This year, a member of the KAQG taught something called a Crazy Nine Patch. It does require that you keep organized while you are sewing it but it has the added advantage that when you finish sewing it you square up the blocks to the largest size you can get your blocks to all match. For instance, if you start with twelve inch squares and, after slicing and piecing, you could get a ten and a half inch block out of each of them, them your blocks wil be ten and a half inches. If you really ended up with raggedty edges you might end up with nine inch blocks. Good for those of us that are not as precise as we should be. The original block block appears to have been taught at a Bernina workshop. A great tutorial on how to do this block is here.

I decided that I would use this block for my Doll Quilt Swap IV submission. Here is what I came up with:

I started with some of those five inch charm squares that are sold in quilt stores. I love working with this size but I thought it would be tricky for this block. It was a little tricky. In the end I ended up with twelve, three and a half inch unfunished blocks which ended up in a twelve by fifteen inch quilt. One thing I would do over is to follow the instructions. I went my own way and the last cut turned out to be a little tricky. Also, you can press your seams to one side as instructed in the Allsorts tutorial or you can press them open. Open means you will have fewer layers to struggle through with your rotary cutter.

BTW - I can't tell you where this quilt is going but its a very long way. I hope it makes it in time!

Gabrielle Swain

I was so lucky this past Friday to take a full day class with Gabrielle Swain. I should have known that this would be an unusual class as the title was 'Designing from Nature'. Designing is not something that I do and nature... heck I'm a piecer not a person who does figurative quilts that look like something. Also, the supply list included everthing but a sewing machine, thread and fabric in a variety of values. We were asked to bring pencils, erasers, large pieces of paper and pictures that inspire us. It was with some trepedition that I came to the class on Friday morning.

I brought a variety of photos including ones of the girls as puppies, my favorite Alex picture, a couple of landscapes and a picture of my Brazilian Roses. I thought I had all my bases covered. Gabrielle started the day teling us a little of her background and some information on how she constructs her quilts. She is a multiple winner at the Houston International Quilt Festival. She does all of her work by hand including all of the applique and quilting. She uses colored pencils and pigma pens to make the hand dyed fabrics that she uses more pleasing to her. It was fascinating. I especially liked the way she was not really careful about how she handled her quilts. I've seen teachers go ballistic if a student dared to touch their quilts. Gabrielle didn't mind us handling them as long as we didn't spill anything on them.

She then talked about the inspiration we had brought. She spent time with each of us talking about focusing in only part of the picture to create a design. The variety of work ranged from a book of Georgia Okeefe paintings to a post card from a favorite restaurant in New Orleans. In every case she had us looking at individual elements of the picture rather than the whole landscape. I quickly realised that I had only one picture that would work for this class. This is the picture I used as my inspiration:

I thought I would focus in on the big pink flower but quickly realised that I would be digging myself into too big a hole to ever get out of. I decided to focus in on the leaf on the lower left. From that choice I then made three different sketches, each focusing in on a small portion of the leaf. Here are my drawings.

The second one looks very weird to me while the third looks a little spare. The first, however, looks like something I could work into a quilt. The biggest problem I have is that I am not confident in the fabrics I should use. I have a ton of hand dyed fabric from Judy Robertson in almost every hue so I may have too many choices. Here's what I am thinking today.. a blue green for the big leaf, a darker green black for the two leaves behind the main leaf. The backgound in a sort of medium purple grey. Fortunately with hand dyes there is lots of color variations within each piece of fabric so I should be able to find the right portion to use for each area.

There were a couple of 'AHA' moments during the class. First of all, because she does all of her work without a sewing machine all of fabrics are trimmed carefully on the back. She does all this trimming with little four inch scissors from Dovo. I thought that you needed duckbill scissors to accomplish her degree of accuracy. The other moment for me was when she said that you can create texture in a piece of fabric just by cutting it into pieces. For example, you can cut one piece of fabric for that big leaf and use the quilting to create definition OR you can cut it into five or six pieces first, applique them to the background and start your quilting with definition and texture already there. Not an 'AHA' but I was pretty proud that I could focus on such a small portion of the photo and get usable drawings.

I will keep you updated as I make decisions and complete this assignment. I know its going to take a while but I hope I create something worth having. Besides fabric choices I also need to decide how to actually construct this quilt... fusible applique, hand applique, freezer paper templates, reverse applique, and all the other applique methods. So many choices but, fortunatly, lots of time.

Bog Coat Fun

Last week I had the pleasure of presenting a program on the Bog Coat to the wearables group of the Kingwood Area Quilt Guild. This was inspired by my experience with making this coat:

Below are my notes on making a bog coat including references that include a set of instructions from the 2003 Bog Coat challenge done by the Houston Quilt Guild wearables group .

THE BOG COAT

A bog coat is a garment constructed out of a rectangle of fabric with the only waste being the opening for your neck. The label, bog coat, was developed as some of the earliest examples were seen in excavations of old bogs In Denmark. Other examples date back about 4,000 years. The style has gone in and out of favor at various times throughout the world. A more contemporary example of this design can be seen in coats made from Hudson Bay blankets in Canada.

The design appears to be based on garments made from animal hides, excluding the extremities. The size of the fabric rectangle is determined by how long and how wide the final garment needs to be. I have attached a set of instructions from the Houston Quilt Guild Wearable Arts Bee challenge from 2003 as a starting point in your design.

Measurements needed:

1. How wide do you want the sleeve to be? This measurement is done from the tip of your shoulder, over your bust to 1 – 2” below your bust. This is typically 11 – 12”.

2. The length of the coat is the next measurement. From the point where you measured your sleeve width at the shoulder, measure down over your bust to where you would like it fall. The length is entirely up to you but can be anywhere from your waist to ankles.

3. Next determine how wide you want your garment. Measure your biggest bit… bust, tummy or hip.

Now you can calculate the size of your rectangle -

Sleeve width (1) ______ plus garment length (2) _________ = _____Side A.

Width (3) _______ plus 6” = __________ side B.

Example: Side A - 12 + 30 = 42 inches
Side B – 40 + 6 = 46 inches
Size of rectangle = 42 x 46 inches

Any and all fabrics can be used for a bog coat as long as they have a bit of drape. Having measurements in hand before you buy fabric can really help in fabric selection. In the example above one side of my rectangle needs to be 42” … a convenient size for quilting cottons if I am not going to quilt the garment. If I were quilting the garment, I may opt for creating the rectangle out of two lengths of fabric, joining them to create the final size plus 2- 4”before quilting.

Cutting out the Garment

There are four cuts that have to be made. The first is for the center front on a side that equals your width. Cut into the middle of this your sleeve width plus 4”. Make a neck oval about 6” wide at this point. Discard this oval or use it for a patch pocket. In the example measurements this cut would be 21” from one side and 16” long.

The third and fourth cuts are from the length sides. Cut into the rectangle twice the width of the sleeve for ¼ of the width. In the example size, these two cuts would be 24” from the side you cut the center front for 11 ½ “. See your pattern template of the Houston instructions for clarity.

Garment construction

Anything goes here – seam the sleeves and around to the center, bind all the edges and sew the edges butted together, join the edges with ties so the garment can become a blanket, serge the seams together, add decorative bands down the front and around the sleeves and on and on and on.

References:

Beyond the Bog Coat by Linda Halpin, RCW Publishing, 1993, Out of Print but available as a pattern directly from the Author – I used this book as the basis for my reversible bog coat with Afghani and Seminole patchwork bands.

Cut My Cote by Dorothy K. Burnham, Royal Ontario Museum, 1973, Out of Print – This little gem has many pieces of clothing constructed with little or no waste in their construction.

Quilts to Wear by Virginia Avery, Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1982, Out of Print - This book has beautiful quilted garments, all of which can be adapted to the bog coat concept.

Google ‘Bog Coat’ on the internet for many examples of bog coats, construction variations and a plethora of fabric choices. One technique I am anxious to try is one similar to the Folk Wear Tibetan Coat pattern that uses gussets for additional shaping.

Houston Quilt Guild Instructions - http://www.thequiltercommunity.com/Wc8f1c1a1f8b9e.htm.

The wearables group has decided to have a challenge of our own over the next few months to construct our own bog coats. I am so looking forward to seeing what everyone comes up with as a one of the women came up with about a dozen variations in about two minutes after we had taken our measurements. I wonder what I will create?

Qult Auction

Last night was the bi-annual Kingwood Area Quilt Guild Auction. What an impressive array of quilts and other goodies! I left a little early to spend some time with Alex but before I left I got to see Aggie madness up close and personal. There was one bed sized quilt made out of Texas A & M fabrics and two male alumni bid against each other until it got up to $1,400.00! I haven't heard about the final tally but it must have been impressive.

The last thing I need is another quilt so I ended up bidding on several silent auction items. One item that I did win was a basket of 'male' oriented items like a universal remote control, a light-up mouse pad and a solar calculator. What the description did not reveal is that most of the items were Chevron promo items. This basket did include a gift certificate for a free oil change so I really did do well. I think what really bugged me about this basket of goodies is that I have been purging myself of BIG BANK labeled items so now I will need to purge myself of BIG OIL labeled items. I did win another basket of items that included a bunch of stinky candles, a large red and white fabric storage box, three red and white tea towels and a red neck support pillow for sleeping while flying. What I really liked in the assortment was a cute lady bug votive candle holder which I promptly broke while unpackaging the assortment. C'est la Vie!

Anyway, I usually go to these things with a set budget in mind and ended up under-spending ... this time. I guess that means I will be able to over-spend on silent auction items at the Hula for the Hounds event tomorrow. Is that serendipity or what?

BTW Alex continues to recover and today we actually made it a couple of houses further along the path to where the attack occured. One of the men who helped us was mowing his lawn and stopped to say hello. Alex became a little crazed and wouldn't stop barking. He was obviously very upset but couldn't seem to match his fierce barking to his friendly tail wagging. He was not agressive and kept himself firmly between my feet or at my side. He did stop barking when we headed home and is happily snoring next to me as I write this post. I think I'll wait a few days and try the same distance again. Every day he becomes a little more like the old Alex though it breaks my heart to see him so frightened. A woman I know said it took her dog six weeks to return to its old self after a similar incident ... I am counting the days!